A half century of disastrous wildfires and flawed land-management policies bring disaster home to Angelenos.
Seems only yesterday, doesn’t it, the massive Camp fire (2018) killed 80 Californians and laid waste to some 150,000 acres of northern California. Closer to LA, the 2017 Woolsey fire burned over much of the same areas back in 2017, another big wildfire once again devastating Malibu and Pacific Palisades this week. The earlier fires should have served warning for elected officials to change their ways. But didn’t.
What do the recent outbreaks of the two massive wildfires in LA County have in common with earlier fires that ravaged up and down California for past centuries? Let’s begin with many short-sighted policy initiatives written into state (and federal) law beginning in the 1970s.
The loss of productive land to wildfire in California had decreased to about a quarter million acres annually from the pre-20th Century levels at 4.5 million acres year that had burned since the times of the Conquistadors. By 2024, burned over land once again rose to 4.5 million acres annually.
What went wrong?
Before the mid-1970s public land in California, both timbered and open grassland, was made available to commercial use by auction. Lumber companies were encouraged to harvest mature timber before it became overgrown and disease-ridden. Prescribed burns effectively reduced the amount of combustible material (duff) on the forest floor and across ridge-lines. Timely harvests ensured valuable timber entered the marketplace and reduced wastage from destructive fires, disease and insect damage.
Non-forested land was leased to cattle and sheep-grazing, limiting the pervasive brush that now supports the spread of wildfire. Urban and sub-urban development was shielded from fire by generous fire-breaks that afforded buffers against encroaching flames and allowed fire-fighters access points to fight fires when they broke out.
Advocates for the range of disastrous policies, negating most of the effective fire prevention and mitigation methods of earlier decades, have been quick to attribute the fires to atypical Santa Ana winds and a severe dry spell leading up to last week’s outbreak. They blame climate change.
The meteorological history of the region does not support this hypothesis. Southern California is a semi-arid region. Typically it experiences warm and dry, summer-like weather for much of the year, receiving most of its modest rainfall during the winter months. This year is no exception. The last measurable rain fell in May 2024.
On arrival in 1542 to what was later to become Los Angeles, the Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo saw smoke rising from wildfires burning back in the hills. He named his anchorage “the Bay of Smokes.”
Apparently, there is nothing new or particularly unusual about the outbreak of wildfires within the LA basin. Obviously, there were no SUVs to warm the climate in Cabrillo’s day. Global climate was still in the throes of the Little Ice Ages.
Contrary to news sources, the Santa Ana winds are not “fueling the flames" of the LA wildfires. Abundant incendiary fuel already lies on the ground ready to burst into flame and ignite the tinder-dry brush and expansive grassy areas throughout the county-side following many years of official neglect.
The tiniest flame is sufficient to ignite a small blaze that will quickly grow into a conflagration from a randomly tossed cigarette or a broken power line happens to fall among brush. It is unclear whether these fires were set through a careless act, equipment failure or by arson.
The underlying cause for repetitive California wildfires are the policies that permit brush-land to flourish and the overground forests to accumulate an excess load of highly-flammable debris in and among the stands of native chaparral that grow profusely during wet periods.
After an extended dry spell, within a short time of an hour during sustained winds, brush and layers of duff covering the ground become tinder-dry and will quickly ignite into a rapidly spreading wildfire. Once a fire front reaches a residential neighborhood, one house ignites the next like a row of falling dominoes, as we have witnessed on TV footage.
As the wildfires gained strong foot-hold last week, the LA Fire Department had difficulty dealing with the high wind. Additionally, the paltry supply of water to fight fire at the scenes was most detrimental in what turned out to be futile attempts to arrest the spread of burgeoning wildfires.
Reservoirs quickly emptied, or were found empty shortly after the fires broke out January 7. Fires on elevated slopes could not be doused because of insufficient pumping capacity and lack of pressure within the hoses. Failure of equipment and water systems were demoralizing to short-handed crews dispatched to battle the flames.
The principal reservoir needed to supply water to fight the Palisades fire was empty and out of service, in a state of disrepair months before the outbreaks occurred. Budget cuts cost lives.
The LA Fire Department’s 2024 budget had been cut by nearly $20 million. Likewise, this year’s California state budget allocation to support wildfire-fighting measures was cut by about $100 million.
According to the LA Fire Department Chief, more than 100 of its fire trucks (nearly 2/3 of its fleet) were out-of-service awaiting repair on January 7—also victims of budget cuts. Draw an analogy with
Pearl Harbor, if you wish.
There is little reason to believe anything foreseeable will give California home-owners confidence that state and local governance will improve enough to reduce the recurrence of wildfires—unless the current officials responsible for these failed policies are removed from office.
There should be a price to pay for official incompetence and malfeasance.